Political Quotes

“I rise today to congratulate Knox College in Galesburg, IL, on the 175th anniversary of its founding. On February 15, 1837, the Illinois Legislature granted a charter to Knox Manual Labor College. Its founder, the Reverend George Washington Gale, a social reformer from New York, came to the Illinois prairie to found a college emphasizing manual labor that would be open to students regardless of their financial means, gender, or race. This egalitarianism and the strong anti-slavery beliefs of Reverend Gale and his followers gave Knox and Galesburg a unique place in the history of the abolitionist movement in America. Knox is a nationally recognized part of the Underground Railroad network. Its Old Main was the site of the fifth debate between U.S. Senate candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas. It was during the debate at Knox that Lincoln would argue for the first time against slavery on moral grounds. It seems fitting that President Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, and President Obama, our nation's first African American president, both hold honorary degrees from this institution. Knox was also the alma mater of Barnabas Root, who in 1870 became one of the first African Americans to earn a college degree in Illinois. In that same year, Hiram Revels, who also attended Knox, became the first African American to serve in the United States Senate.…”